Menu manager

Table of Contents

• Task description
• Routes
• Bonus points

Task Description

Fork or Download this repository and implement the logic to manage a menu.

A Menu has a depth of N and maximum number of items per layer M. Consider N and M to be dynamic for bonus points.

It should be possible to manage the menu by sending API requests. Do not implement a frontend for this task.

Feel free to add comments or considerations when submitting the response at the end of the README.

Example menu

• Home
  • Home sub1
    • Home sub sub
      • [N]
  • Home sub2
  • [M]
• About
• [M]

Routes

POST /menus

Create a menu.

Input

{
    "field": "value"
}

Bonus

{
    "field": "value",
    "max_depth": 5,
    "max_children": 5
}

Output

{
    "field": "value"
}

Bonus

{
    "field": "value",
    "max_depth": 5,
    "max_children": 5
}

GET /menus/{menu}

Get the menu.

Output

{
    "field": "value"
}

Bonus

{
    "field": "value",
    "max_depth": 5,
    "max_children": 5
}

PUT|PATCH /menus/{menu}

Update the menu.

Input

{
    "field": "value"
}

Bonus

{
    "field": "value",
    "max_depth": 5,
    "max_children": 5
}

Output

{
    "field": "value"
}

Bonus

{
    "field": "value",
    "max_depth": 5,
    "max_children": 5
}

DELETE /menus/{menu}

Delete the menu.

POST /menus/{menu}/items

Create menu items.

Input

[
    {
        "field": "value"
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Bonus

[
    {
        "field": "value",
        "children": [
            {
                "field": "value",
                "children": []
            },
            {
                "field": "value"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Output

[
    {
        "field": "value"
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Bonus

[
    {
        "field": "value",
        "children": [
            {
                "field": "value",
                "children": []
            },
            {
                "field": "value"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

GET /menus/{menu}/items

Get all menu items.

Output

[
    {
        "field": "value"
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Bonus

[
    {
        "field": "value",
        "children": [
            {
                "field": "value",
                "children": []
            },
            {
                "field": "value"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

DELETE /menus/{menu}/items

Remove all menu items.

POST /items

Create an item.

Input

{
    "field": "value"
}

Output

{
    "field": "value"
}

GET /items/{item}

Get the item.

Output

{
    "field": "value"
}

PUT|PATCH /items/{item}

Update the item.

Input

{
    "field": "value"
}

Output

{
    "field": "value"
}

DELETE /items/{item}

Delete the item.

POST /items/{item}/children

Create item's children.

Input

[
    {
        "field": "value"
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Bonus

[
    {
        "field": "value",
        "children": [
            {
                "field": "value",
                "children": []
            },
            {
                "field": "value"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Output

[
    {
        "field": "value"
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Bonus

[
    {
        "field": "value",
        "children": [
            {
                "field": "value",
                "children": []
            },
            {
                "field": "value"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

GET /items/{item}/children

Get all item's children.

Output

[
    {
        "field": "value"
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

Bonus

[
    {
        "field": "value",
        "children": [
            {
                "field": "value",
                "children": []
            },
            {
                "field": "value"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

DELETE /items/{item}/children

Remove all children.

GET /menus/{menu}/layers/{layer}

Get all menu items in a layer.

Output

[
    {
        "field": "value"
    },
    {
        "field": "value"
    }
]

DELETE /menus/{menu}/layers/{layer}

Remove a layer and relink layer + 1 with layer - 1, to avoid dangling data.

GET /menus/{menu}/depth

Output

Get depth of menu.

{
    "depth": 5
}

Bonus points

• 10 vs 1.000.000 menu items - what would you do differently?
• Write documentation
• Use PhpCS | PhpCsFixer | PhpStan
• Use cache
• Use data structures
• Use docker

Comments / Considerations - by Toms

Task descriptions could be written in much more detail because quite many things are not clear, like

• What are development restrictions - anything is allowed or without 3rd party dependencies, etc.;
• Route requirements and output could be described in more detail, for example, at first I did not understand how POST /items route is different from POST /menus/{menu}/items;
• Layer is not clearly understandable without extra information;
• Also, difficult to understand if max_children is per layer or per parent item.

Development results - by Toms

I managed to do most of the tasks written above.

• All routes (with "bonus" requirements) are developed but tested only by using the actual API calls and debugging;
• Created data factories and seeders;
• Used PhpCS and PhpCsFixer for PSR1 and PSR2 rules;
• Used Redis (PHPRedis) cache;
• Used data structures;
• Used docker.

Possible development improvements - by Toms

API Authentication not included just because this is a prototype project.

Things that could be done better but were excluded because of time consumed for these tasks:

• Caching is added only to MenuController;
• Data gathering is not fully optimized. Should have used eager loading in few places but I have not tested if that would reduce SQL connections;
• Some validations could be optimized better with less SQL connections (have not tested - just thoughts);
• Tests should be written;
• Validations could be moved to separate files for cleaner and more structured code;
• Documention should be written.

Regarding the question "10 vs 1.000.000 menu items - what would you do differently?": few previously mentioned bullet-points related to optimization and caching would make the difference for higher load of storage.

Docker and Laravel setup instructions - by Toms

Docker Hub repository

Docker project structure (docker files can be found in docker.zip archive inside this GitHub repository):

• app
  • Laravel project files (pull from this GitHub repository)
• nginx
  • conf.d
    • app.conf
• php
  • local.ini
• docker-compose.yml
• Dockerfile

Commands necessary for project to work:

• composer install
• php artisan migrate:refresh --seed